Literary Criticism

"Literary criticism” refers to the act of interpreting and studying literature.

A literary critic is someone who argues on behalf of an interpretation or understanding of the particular meaning(s) of literary texts. The task of a literary critic is to explain and attempt to reach a critical understanding of what literary texts mean in terms of their aesthetic, as well as social, political, and cultural statements and suggestions. 

Your English teacher has told you to pick a work of literature, find literary criticism about it, and then write a paper summarizing your research. Your instructor tells you to find both books and journal articles on your chosen literary work. And finally, you need to set the literary work in its context, meaning you need to say something about the author, his or her life, and why he or she wrote that particular literary work.

How do you get started? Where do you find this stuff?

This research guide is designed to lead you through the process of finding literary criticism and writing your literary analysis paper.

In this guide, you will learn about:

• Steps to help you develop and find resources for your assignment.

• Databases that provide you access to literary journals, biographical information, plot summaries, overviews, book reviews, and critical materials about the literary work you have chosen.

• Information about literary theory and literary terms to help you focus your ideas.

• Interlibrary loan to request resources not owned by the UTA Library.

• Information on citation in MLA format.

Literary analysis does not need to be nerve-wracking or time-consuming. Here are some tips regarding topic selection to help make the research process stress-free:

1 It is easier to find criticism on works of authors from the past than on works by contemporary authors. It takes time for a body of critical writing about an author or literary work to grow.

2 It is easier to find criticism on works by well-known authors than on works by those not so famous.

3 Larger works, like novels and plays, seem to attract more critical attention than individual short stories, essays, or poems.

4 Don't finalize your topic too soon. Consider two or three works of literature, do some quick, preliminary searching for each title in the tools introduced in this research guide, and choose the one on which you can find the most information most quickly.  

5 Unless, of course, an obscure work or work by a contemporary author is something you are passionately interested in. Then ignore Tips One through Four, and choose it.